Flirting With Disaster (10 page)

His compliment pulled her from her scientific contemplation. “You know when I’m thinking?”

He nodded and stuck another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “And when you’re nervous or frustrated or excited about something you’ve just figured out. Your emotions are written all over your face.”

She covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I like it. You’re honest.”

Honest. And here she was, planning to secretly impregnate herself. “How come I don’t know anything about you? You’re like the spooky mystery of the castle. No one sees you or knows anything about you.”

His mouth curved on one end in a wry smile. “There isn’t much one would enjoy knowing. I’m not the man you think I am.”

“I’m an expert in the human species, Beckette. I’m quite sure I know a little something about the man you are inside, if my research and observation skills are as good as my PhD say they are. Try me.”

He glowered as if to scare her away then jumped off the counter and stood between her knees. “I’m twelve months sober and just as long celibate. Before that, I was a drunk on and off for the last seventeen years, pissing everyone off and leaving a trail of destruction behind me. I grew up in a strict Christian household with a ruthless, exacting preacher for a father and a complaisant mother, neither of whom have approved of me for the last twenty years or spoken to me in five, because I broke their hearts with my addiction. I’m here rediscovering myself as part of my recovery. I’m keeping the world safe from the curse that is Beckette Sl—me.”

Jude fell even further toward his inevitable love trap, if that were possible in three days. “Is it working?”

He glanced at her and paused. A small smile caught the corner of his mouth. “At times.” He toyed with the sleeve of her robe. “I’m a bad bet, Jude Duffy. I’m an addict. An adrenaline junkie who thrives on chaos then self-destructs, taking down everyone around me while I drink to relieve the stress. I need to avoid messy attachments and keep to a steady, straight road so my stress level can be non-existent.”

“There is no such thing as a stress-free world, Beck. You need to find inner peace against the outside stressors. Hence the word
inner
.”

“Easier said than done.”

“You didn’t mention your wife.” She studied the remoteness in his amber eyes. She should run like hell, but her inquisitive mind wanted to know the whole story about her beast.

“My wife?”

“Yes.”

He paused, eyes lowered to his scarred hand. “I killed her six years ago.”

Jude chuckled. “Stop. Tell me the truth. Maybe it will make you feel better to get it out.”

He brought his gaze back to hers, the shadows misting through his eyes like dark clouds before a thunderstorm.

“You’re telling me what you believe. Now tell me what happened.”

He crossed his arms and backed to the opposite counter a few feet away, putting virtual miles between them. “She died a year after we were married because I was a drunken asshole who’d deserted her when she needed me to stay and work things out.”

There was more to the story. She’d bet her life on it. She reached out, pulled him closer then touched the scar on his cheek. “You loved her.”

He shrugged. “And I killed her. I keep a gun and a bottle of whiskey by my bed. Reminders of how quickly I could change my life if I chose.”

Every part of her wanted to touch him, hold this shattered man, find out the whole story. “Let’s hold off on those kind of changes for a while, hmmm?”

Beck smiled. “
You’ve
changed things. Some.”

“For the better, I hope?”

He laughed. A wonderful, rusty chuckle. “The jury’s still out.” His features sobered. “You’re dangerous to me, Jude.”

“And the scars on your face and arm? How did you get those?”

He stood there, never taking his eyes from her, reading her, deciding…something. “All just reminders of the people I’ve hurt.”

Jude ran her finger along his hand—puckered, filled with peaks and valleys to trap the pain. “My parents died in a plane crash. I know what it’s like to feel guilt and sorrow over things said or unsaid before those we care about leave us. Some bad things just happen, Beck. Through no cause of our own.”

He lifted his hands to her face, his eyes riveted to her lips. “Very dangerous.”

His features hardened—in anger, fear, regret…she didn’t know. But the intensity of his need enveloped her like the warmth of a steam shower as he lowered his lips to hers.

And she was done.

Done with worrying, done with researching, done with calculating, done with thinking. All she wanted was to feel.

His kiss was soft, yet demanding. His tongue warm and commanding as he tasted her lips. She opened for him and his tongue swept inside like a marauder conquering his most arduous rival.

He pulled back abruptly and rested his forehead against hers. “Jude, the things I want to do to you. God, do you know how bad I am for you?”

She knew.

“I can’t resist you. All I can think about is being with you, knowing you, fucking you.”

She gasped and he smiled.

“Does that scare you?”

She shook her head. “Actually, no. Your dirty talk is…
stimulating
. I’ve never been with a man, Beck. My whole life has been on the outside looking in. I want to be inside that world. If only for a night, I’ll take it.”

His eyes narrowed. “But you don’t want me. You want Fantome.”

“I was hoping for a more clandestine affair. One where I didn’t…
know
so much about my despoiler. An affair strictly of the body.”

He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. “So honest, so innocent, so articulate.” He tilted his head. “I wonder if you’ll be chatty while I fuck you. I think I’d like that. To hear all your thoughts, everything you feel while I taste you, pump inside you over and over. Make you come.”

He smiled then took her mouth in a ravenous kiss as he yanked her hips forward. Her robe fell open, exposing her satin night gown. The firm ridge of his erection pressed against her pelvis as if she had nothing on at all. It was marvelous.

Beck’s hands moved up the sides of her waist to the underside of her breasts. The calluses on his large strong hands caught on the satin material as he held her, his thumbs stroking her aching nipples. Gosh darn. With the way his foreplay made her shiver and ache and tingle in her secret places, she hoped it lasted a lot longer than three minutes. Practice did make perfect and, as a researching scientist, she settled for nothing less than perfect.

Her beast lowered his head and suckled one of her breasts right through her nightgown. So glorious, so warm and wet. He groaned as he took her nipple between his teeth and bit down. That groan sent a bolt of lightning to her vaginal tissues, causing them to throb and moisten…biology at its best.

“Oh my God, Beck. That is wonderful.” She wriggled on the cold steel, pushing closer to his erection. He obliged, wrapping his arms around her hips and forcefully drawing her against him. Possessive and demanding, he rubbed his hard shaft against her clitoris. The response was instant. A throb, an electrical current lit up her girl parts, making her yearn to be touched. Holy God, her body
did
work. But what about the orgasm? When was the orgasm going to happen? This was lovely, but how was she to get there?

Jude started to fret. “Beck, I need, I need…”

He tilted her chin to catch her gaze. “Baby, I know just what you need.” He slid her robe off her shoulders, taking the straps of her nightgown with it.

She caught the front and held it to her chest, embarrassed by her fleshy curves. Men in the twenty-first century did not prefer fleshy women. “I’m not a thin girl.”

He smiled. “That’s good, cause I don’t like thin girls. They stopped appealing to me when I was twelve.”

She laughed.

“You are just the type of girl I want. Soft and delicious.” He swept her messy curls from her face. “With a beautiful mind.” His brows arched. “And very clean hands.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “For how long, Beckette? How long could a mating like this possibly last?” Why ask such a question? She didn’t really want the tragic response.

“I’m hoping it will last until I can make you come so many times you won’t be able to walk.”

Jude gasped. Did he just say that? Was that even possible?

Beck pulled her hands from her chest, causing her nightgown to fall from her large breasts. She tensed, waiting for his rejection.

“My God, you’re gorgeous.” The reverence in his voice sent hope skyrocketing through her soul. He lifted the skirt of the gown and abruptly tore her panties. They came off with a pinch to her hip, and he tucked them into his jeans’ pocket. He kissed her then like he had something to prove, something to conquer. His tongue plundered every part of her mouth while his hands delicately stroked her breasts and taut nipples.

He bent, licking one aching nipple then the other, then pulled back and looked into her eyes. “I want to watch you come, Jude. I want to see those expressive eyes and that beautiful face and all it has to offer while you come. Will you come for me, honey?”

She stared, transfixed by his voice, his words, his politeness polished with a sinful decadence. “Yes.” She nodded like an air-headed doll. Her lateral orbitofrontal cortex had just checked out.

He smiled and slid his hand up her bare thighs toward the throbbing mess of her womanhood. Jude didn’t like messes. She instinctively closed her legs.

“No chance, Baby.” The beast stepped closer, opening her knees wide with his hips, spreading her thighs with both hands. “You are beautiful, Jude. Warm, wet, needy. I always want you like this when you are around me. Will you do that for me? Always need me?”

It was more than a sexual request. Jude knew it as well as she knew she didn’t have much of a choice. Every time she was near this man, smelled this man, thought of this man, she was going to weep with wanting him. He’d cast his sensual curse all over her.

“Yes.” She pulled his mouth to hers. The kiss was demanding and urgent. A carnal merging of two lost souls.

Beck ended the kiss on a groan and slowly slid his fingers between her legs— a mating of flesh and fluids meant for the gods. His wicked fingers played and stroked her folds until he found her clitoris. He expertly rolled the little bundle of nerves into a throbbing, aching time bomb that needed to detonate.

Jude moaned, eyes closed as she focused on the glorious sensations.

“Open your eyes, Baby. I need to see everything going on in that brilliant mind.” His voice wrapped around her like a warm velvet cocoon, scattering every one of her inhibitions and preconceived notions of what to expect. For once in her life, she just…Let. It. Be.

Jude blinked. Was there love in his gaze? Couldn’t be in just three short days, but she swore…

Those talented nimble fingers slipped inside her. She was slick and swollen and craving his touch.

He owned her, held her prisoner between his hands—one pushing her lower back, the other palming her from the front. “Jude, I’m going to fuck you. I need to have you even though I know I shouldn’t.”

The nerve endings between her legs throbbed with joy. A responsive spasm answered his declaration. Was this it? The beginning of the mysterious ‘O?’ How marvelous! The vulgarity of his words should have turned her off, but his desperation seemed nothing short of reverence. Reverence for her.

He moaned, then quickly pulled his fingers from her depths and dropped his forehead to hers. “You will not come until you are around my dick. We are going to make love until we both forget who and what we are.”

Holy crap, this strong, sexually-aroused alpha male was taking control as she sat there, spread open and half naked like a strumpet high on Viagra. “Yes. Yes, please. Hurry, Beck.”

He smiled, then licked the finger he’d used inside her like an orgasmic weapon. He rubbed that finger over her bottom lip and, as her tongue touched her lip, she tasted herself.
Oh. My. God.
  

Beck stepped back, lifted her off the table and cradled her to his chest.

“Beckette!”

“I may be a beast, but I’m not making love to you in a public kitchen. What I’m going to do to you isn’t fit for onlookers.”

“But the counter! I have to clean the counter! It’s dirty, unsanitary with what we just did!”

“Baby, you haven’t seen dirty yet.”

Twelve